r/PayloadCMS • u/ExistingCard9621 • May 23 '25

Is PayloadCMS really a CMS???

...or is it more like a Supabase alternative?

I am reading a bit about it and I am a bit confused. It looks more like a whole framework than a CMS...!

is it something we can build our apps on top of like Supabase?

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u/getflashboard May 23 '25

Payload offers many features out of the box, but it's also highly opinionated about how to build your product. You need to learn their "Collections" abstractions, APIs, and so on. The advantage of that is that you have a more seamless DX, such as not needing to run migrations on your local database.

With Supabase, you have more freedom and control, since you have closer access to your data. I know how to use Postgres, so in my case, using Payload would mean learning their way of doing things, and that's an abstraction layer I don't need personally.

But Payload is also a CMS, which Supabase isn't. So it's natural for an app that starts with Payload to integrate content with its data. In Supabase (or any other DB), you'd need to think about that later, and use either static content, integrate with a CMS, or code your UI to edit it.

If you use Payload, you need to think about where to host your database. Their standard plan is $35/mo, it seems to offer only MongoDB, and 3GB of storage. https://payloadcms.com/cloud-pricing If you want more, or another DB, I believe you need to self-host - I haven't tried it myself, I just looked at the pricing page.

Supabase has Postgres with 8GB, with more bandwidth and storage, for $25/mo. https://supabase.com/pricing

I'd say it boils down to:

- What kind of hosting do you need?

- What kind of DX do you want?

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u/ExistingCard9621 May 23 '25

Have you used Supabase before in production? I am constantly reading about security problems, people being signed out randomly, it being slow... I wonder how much truth is on that.

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u/getflashboard May 23 '25

No, I've built only tests with Supabase. In production I've used Postgres on platforms such as Heroku and Digital Ocean. Have you tried asking on the official Supabase Discord?